Terracotta Warriors Exhibit (plus links to our China Freebies)

Last week, I shared a little bit about what we’ve been doing in our homeschool, but I also mentioned that we have been on the go a lot. Pretty much right after that post went live, we headed out of town again! I wanted to share a few pictures from the amazing exhibit we went to see: Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China. It was wonderful!

The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. These pieces were buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE.

One of the first things you see when you walk into the exhibit is this chariot:

In 1974 local farmers digging a well outside the city of Xi’an in Shaanxi province, China, discovered pottery shards and bronze arrows near the mausoleum of Ying Zheng. This led to the astonishing discovery of 8,000 life-size terracotta warriors and horses, which is considered one of the most important archaeological finds in human history.

The exhibition had quite an array of objects. In addition to the terracotta warriors, it included arms and armor, ritual bronze vessels, works in gold and silver, jade ornaments, precious jewelry and ceramics.

Ancient Chinese Coins: We thought the display of money was interesting. All of these objects below were used as money! The coin on the left was from the Han dynasty. The knife-shaped coin in the middle was from the Qi. The coin on the right was a banliang coin from the Qin dynasty after the emperor standardized coins across the empire.

There were 9 life-size terracotta figures. What is amazing, is that each figure has a unique face. Here’s a collage of many of these faces so you can see just what I mean! Can you tell which one is the servant? Can you find the general?

The servant is the second from the right on the bottom row. The general is in the top left corner.

What you can’t tell from the photo above is that the general is the tallest figure in the exhibit. Generals were the highest ranking figures excavated from the pits. In the picture below, his hand was probably resting on a sword. His finger is pointing, showing that he was in command.Below is an archer:

And this is a cavalry horse and cavalryman:

This is a picture of the excavation site in Xian, China. As you can see, people can walk around the edges to observe this site. Hubby and I were able to visit Xian a couple years before LD was born. It was pretty amazing how vast this site is! There are thousands of warriors in this army.

The soldiers within were laid out as if to protect the tomb from the east, where the Qin Emperor’s conquered states lay.

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Hi! I’m Liesl!

Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)

A bit about me: I have my Master's from Brown University. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. I was a high school teacher for many years both in the U.S. and internationally and also taught for the University of Maryland before leaving to homeschool my 3 wonderful kids.
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